


Requiem

by cavenmalore



Category: 13 Reasons Why (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, One Shot Collection, Past Abuse, Post-Season/Series 03, slight descriptions of sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 03:33:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20500184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cavenmalore/pseuds/cavenmalore
Summary: Jessica realizes that she doesn't know much about Justin's past, while trying to make their future right.This is just a collection of one-shots that I wrote to indulge myself. Sorry, there isn't much of a plot besides pure angst.





	Requiem

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this because I really wanted some more of Jessica learning more about Justin's past after season 3 (because there is so much that the audience knows that I don't think anyone ever told her) and I really wanted some follow up after the survivor scene. Since there wasn't a lot of post-season 3 fanfic, I had to write it myself lol. 
> 
> Sorry there isn't much of a plot, but if you're an angst lover like me, I hope you'll like this.

When she was a freshman in high school, Jessica’s parents made her watch  _ Requiem For A Dream.  _

She complained and rolled her eyes, protesting that she didn’t need to see it, but her parents insisted. At first, she watched casually, letting her mind wander while gazing at the screen. Eventually, though, she was absorbed, her eyes hooked on each horrifying image, one after the other. She let herself be held by her parents as she watched in a way they hadn’t in years, goosebumps running down her arms. It was horrifying; each scene was more gruesome than the last. By the end, Jess felt sick to her stomach, terrified of ever doing drugs and ending up like any of the characters: alone, sad, and addicted. The final scene stayed burned in her memory, etched in for the rest of her life. 

Afterward, he parents reminded her that they showed her this because  _ you’re going into high school now, it’s important to stay away from drugs.  _ She nodded mutely at their words, not needing to be told twice. But that was then, the movie slowly slid out of her mind, pushed to the back by alcohol and weed and crowded house parties. 

Now, every time she saw Justin, it came rushing back. 

It’s not that it happened intentionally. Since she had learned of his addiction and survivor status, she couldn’t help but think of the characters in the movie. But instead of their faces, she sees Justin's’. 

Justin in prison, going through withdrawal. 

Justin selling drugs and getting high off his own supply. 

Justin prostituting himself. 

Justin, alone. 

Jess tried to console herself. If it was really that bad, he would have come to her, cried on her shoulder, vented about his mistreatment. But that’s not true. Justin wasn’t her, preaching about every injustice. Clay was the one to tell her about his heroin addiction. Justin didn’t reveal his survivor status for years (or months depending on how you looked at it). There were six months of missing time where anything could have happened. Not to mention, the question that was Justin’s childhood. 

After their talk at the police station, the missing information occupied Jessica’s thoughts. What else could she have missed? What more didn’t she know about? Jess was consumed by the overwhelming fact that she knew virtually nothing about the man she loved. Before, they had been a well-oiled machine, finishing each other’s thoughts without breaking a sweat, a constant presence in each other’s lives. But that was gone now. And what could she do about it? It wasn’t like she could force Justin to talk to her about it, that would take time, building up foundations that had been wrecked to nothing. 

But she had to know. 

* * *

  
  


She ended up talking to Tony about it. 

They had gone to lunch at Monets on a rare day that Justin wasn’t working. They sat in the corner booth, catching up and chatting about nothing. Jessica asked how Tony was doing trying to make up all the work he missed and Tony inquired about HO. Slowly, the conversation deepened and Jess couldn’t help but spill her concerns. 

“He’s just not talking to me, you know? Like, I didn’t even know that he was doing heroin until Clay told me he relapsed. That's the stuff you’re supposed to tell your girlfriend.” 

Tony nodded in sympathy. “Well, Justin’s a private person. It took him a long time before he told me how he got addicted, and that was after cleaning up his puke for a week.” His mouth quirked up a little bit. 

“I forgot that you helped detox him,” Jess said, “What was that like?” She couldn’t help but ask, curiosity burning. 

“Annoying,” Tony joked, “He was moody and sick and a total drama queen through the worst of it.” 

She laughed. “Really?” 

“Yup. We would offer him anti-nausea meds and he would refuse them, then complain when he threw up.” Jessica scrunched her nose. “Don’t get me wrong though,” Tony continued, “As bad as it was for us, it was worse for him.” 

“What do you mean?” Jess leaned heavily onto the table, closer to Tony. 

Tony’s eyes fixated on a spot over Jessica’s shoulder. She pulled her sweatshirt closer around her. 

“He would get these awful cramps. He would lay on the couch, holding his stomach. Sometimes he would let out these,” Tony paused, “just terrible moans, like a wounded animal. Or we’d play checkers and his hands would shake so bad that he couldn’t move the pieces,” He closed his eyes and pain flashed across his face. “The worst part, though, was the beginning. He would not stop the first few days, ‘please, just one gram. Just get me a little bit and I’ll disappear again’, stuff like that.” 

Jessica swallowed hard. “That’s...awful,” She said after a moment.

“Yeah,” Tony agreed quietly. 

“And this was after you found him? On the street,” she clarified. 

“Uh huh.”

“Where was he? If you don’t mind me asking, we don’t have to talk about this.” 

“No, no it’s fine. It’s not my shit and I’m pretty sure none of this is a secret,” Tony responded. Jess nodded, desperation clawing at her brain, compelling her to find out more. “We found him sitting on the corner beginning for change. It was fucking awful. We went to a whole bunch of shelters and camps to find him. I almost didn’t see him, he looked so...different. Like, all the fight had gone out of him. I mean, I guess that’s what happens when you’re sleeping on the sidewalk for months.” 

Jessica shook her head. “I guess.”

“When we picked him up, Jesus, he smelled so bad. Skinny too. I bought him water and he drank the whole thing in, like, two seconds. It was crazy. He looked like he was fucking anorexic or something.” Jessica cringed. 

“I can’t imagine that.” When she imagined Justin, she thought of of a muscular athlete, lean and poised, not a half starved, unshowered wreck. It was hard to rectify those two images; they just weren’t the same person. Maybe that was intentional. Wasn’t the whole point of having Justin detox at Clay’s house so that she never had to see that side of him? The one with no fight left in his eyes and hollow skin. “Thanks, Tony,” their eyes met, “for telling me this.” 

“Of course.” 

* * *

She tried to be careful, the way that Justin was so careful with her, forever tip toeing around her triggers. He was so gentle, never making her feel like broken glass on the verge of shattering into a thousand tiny shards, but loved, cared for. Not that it came up a lot. Justin was cautious; he almost never needed to apologize for accidentally causing a panic attack to settle into her bones and dig into the corners of her mind. 

Jessica tried to be the same, to make sure that he never felt the way she did when one word, one look sent her spiraling. But it was so hard when she had no idea what triggered him. 

She had tried to ask Clay, but all he had said was “Avoid drugs and drinking. Other than that I have no idea. Just watch him. That’s what I do.” 

Not very helpful. 

So she watched and waited. 

And waited. 

And waited. 

She waited until she gave up. There was nothing about him, no heaving breaths or stuttering chests. No sudden sweating or tears. No panic attacks or anything that would signal he was in distress. Just Justin, who bit his nails when he wanted a hit. (At least that she could see and help with.) 

Justin looked totally fine, like he had lived a totally normal life with totally normal parents and a totally normal house to come home to. 

And then they got lunch. 

Jessica knew that teenage boys could eat. She had plenty of guy friends, she had seen more than her share of destroyed pizzas and kitchens cleaned of any trace of food. Jessica was aware that it was normal for a teenage boy to eat like he was starving. 

But the amount that Justin ate concerned her. 

She had never seen him leave food on a plate. Ever. If there was food left, Justin would finish it, no question. Most of the time, she would call him a vacuum cleaner and leave him to it, but the more she saw, the more worried she got. 

Sometimes, he would look full, on the brink of a food coma, and still dig into whatever was left on Jessica’s plate. 

“You know you don’t have to finish it, right?” 

“What?” he asked, his eyes locked onto the scraps of lettuce and tomato that consisted the rest of her sandwich. 

“It’s just scraps. You don’t have to finish my food.” 

Justin scrunched his nose. He stopped eating but continued to push the extra lettuce around Jess’s plate. It was just a little bit bigger than the tip of his finger. “Yeah, but it’s perfectly good. There’s no reason for it to go to waste.” 

“Justin, it’s like a little piece of lettuce. I think it’s okay not to eat it.” Justin frowned, but didn’t say anything. 

Finally, he said, “I don’t get why it’s such a big deal. It’s food. Why not eat it?” 

Jessica opened her mouth and then closed it again. She didn’t know how to describe it to him. Yes, it was food, but you didn’t have to eat every crumb. It was okay to leave some food left on the plate. There would be more. 

_ Unless there wouldn’t be.  _

And suddenly, it clicked. 

Justin’s trauma didn’t appear to Jess in fast spurts of pain, in panic attacks or avoidance. It came slowly, like waves slowly eroding the shores of Justin’s mind, chipping away at his well being. The way that they showed their pain was different, two different languages that didn’t perfectly translate. 

That’s okay. She would just become fluent. 

* * *

Jessica and Zach had always been friendly. He was Justin’s best friend and she was Justin’s girlfriend, so naturally they spent a lot of time together. But normally, Justin was in between them, acting as a buffer. A weird effect of the tapes and the trial and the murder was that Jessica and Zach spent time alone, hanging out, without Justin. At first, Justin had loved the idea, two people he loved more than anything getting along, tightening the family that he’d slowly begun to build for himself. After a while, that naivety wore off as Jessica and Zach realized that they finally had some to validate all their complaints and tag team when teasing. 

They sat together in study hall. Because he was captain of the football team, most people thought that Zach didn’t take a lot of hard classes. That wasn’t true. He and Jessica had two AP classes and one honors class together. They usually spent the period (more like 15 minutes really, but who’s counting?) working on homework together. 

“Zach?” He made a noise in response but didn’t look up from his laptop. “Zach.” 

“Yeah?” Zach looked up, his fingers still resting on the keyboard. Jessica looked around quickly and leaned in. She wasn’t sure if she should be asking him this here, but there was no better time to do it and the question had been on the tip of her tongue all week. Her gut fluttered. 

“What do you know about Justin’s mom?” She asked carefully. 

Zach’s eyebrows shot up. “Uh, not much. Why?” 

Jessica pressed her lips together. “The Jensens are trying to finish the adoption but they can’t do it unless Justin’s mom gives up her parental rights. Otherwise they have to wait months to make sure she’s really gone.” 

“Yeah, Justin told me.” He tilted his head to say  _ so what do you really want to ask? _

Jessica’s tongue felt stuck in her throat. Was she right to even be asking this? Was it even Zach’s place to answer? Maybe this whole thing was a mistake.  _ It’s a mistake you’ve already started, might as well finish it.  _

“Do you think they’re going to find her?” Zach inhaled sharply. 

“Justin’s mom is an interesting woman,” he said slowly, “From what I’ve heard from Justin, which is not very much, it sounds like he might’ve,” he stopped suddenly, looking unsure. 

“Might’ve what?” 

“I don’t know, Jess, I’m not sure I should be sharing this.” 

“Zach, please.” 

He sighed, his finger scratching at a spot on the table. “From what Justin told me, I think he might’ve asked his mom to leave.” 

Jessica blinked, letting the information settle into her brain. “So the Jensen’s could adopt him?”

“I don’t think that’s it. It sounded like it was for something much more important and it happened before the Jensen’s asked to adopt him.” 

Jessica sat back in her chair. “What the fuck.” 

“I know right? I can’t imagine.” 

She sighed. “It must’ve been bad.” 

“Yeah.” Zach bit the edge of his lip and leaned over the table. “Jess, did Justin ever tell you what happened? Like, when he was gone.” 

_ When he was gone. _ That was a nicer way to phrase it than it probably deserved. Jessica clenched her teeth, disappointment seeping into her expression no matter how hard she tried to hide it. 

“I had been hoping that you knew.” 

Zach’s shoulders sagged as he huffed. “So he told neither of us anything?” 

“Well, he told me a little bit about his, uh, survivor status.” 

“Me too. But other than that?” 

“Nothing,” Jessica confirmed. 

“Shit.” 

“Shit.” 

* * *

Sometimes Jessica forgot. 

Shame would burn through her body, coursing through her veins until her face was on fire. She would smile, a slight tilt of her lips, in his direction, apology shining through her eyes. He would smile back, his mouth tugging dimples out of the folds of his face, but it wouldn’t relieve her guilt. She would explain or someone else would, it didn’t matter because someone always had to let Justin in on what was so funny, why everyone groaned, what the gossip was, what he had missed the six months he was away. 

As bad as Jessica felt, she was sure that it was so much worse for him. She would go out of her mind if she was on the outside so often, always just one step behind everyone else. He never complained though, just asked and asked and asked until he was answered. Then he would smile, again, and continue on. 

At some point it stopped being noticeable. Just another part of conversation. Someone would make a reference, and Justin would glance at her. “What?” he would ask, second-hand embarrassment bubbling up. 

Once, when it was just them, she had asked “Is it hard? Always asking what happened when you were gone?” 

He looked at her for a second, before returning to what he was doing. “No,” he said simply. “Everyone misses out on stuff. I just missed more than most.” 

And they left it at that. 

* * *

His hands were all over her, in her hair, on her hips, on her breasts. She pushed herself deeper into his touch, letting his fingers roam up and down her body, leaving golden trails of tingling skin. Their tongues connected, coaxing each other out of their mouths. Jessica pressed her lips harder into Justin’s face and pushed down harder with her hips, gaining more friction and momentum. She wanted him  _ now.  _ All their clothing was gone, except for underwear. Why was her underwear on? More importantly, why was  _ his _ underwear still on? Jess needed it off. His body was hot, blood boiling as he thrust upwards to meet Jessica’s hips.  _ Why was his underwear still on? _

Jess took her panties off. Justin let out a breath but didn’t say anything (finally). She moved to take his brief’s off but--

“Is everything okay?” Jessica was frozen, hands hovering over Justin’s waistband. Her heart pinched at the concerned note in Justin’s voice. “Do you want to stop?” 

“What? No,” Jessica insisted. Justin nodded, looking relieved. “Are you okay? With this?” 

“Yeah,” Justin said, totally casual. It worried Jess. 

“But like, are you actually okay with this?” 

Justin sat up, eyebrows scrunched together. “Yes, Jess, I am okay with this. I consent to you taking off my underwear,” Justin said with a teasing note at the end. 

“It’s not funny!” She said, hitting him on the stomach. 

“Of course it’s not!” Justin quickly backtracked, “Consent isn’t funny. I love consent, don’t worry, I am all about consent. But, what’s with the double check?”

Jessica sighed, moving to sit next to Justin at the top of the bed. “It’s just, you were so good about giving me the space I needed and letting me figure out what I wanted when we started having sex again. And I’m just worried that I didn’t do the same for you. Because, like, we’ve been doing all the stuff that makes me feel good.”  _ But not you.  _

“But I wanna do the stuff that makes you feel good!” Justin protested. 

Jessica looked away. They had to have this conversation, even if Jessica dreaded it more than anything. “I don’t want our sex to be all about my recovery. I’m worried that you never took the time to heal and regain control after everything.” 

And that was it. What had been consuming Jess’s mind every time she thought about having sex with Justin or kissed Justin or did anything sexual with him. That lingering fear that made even the hottest hookup stone cold. 

After Jessica was raped, nothing about sex felt right anymore. Every touch made her heart beat out of control, every kiss made her throat close. Just lying on a bed with another person made her feel like she was drowning. Having any kind of sex with someone was unthinkable, the worst kind of torture. All the survivors she’d spoken could empathize. 

So, she couldn’t imagine being Justin, who jumped right back into the saddle, assault after assault. 

For a while, Justin didn’t say anything. He stared at his hands, crumpling the duvet in his fists. Clench, release. Clench, release. 

“I’m not like you,” he said finally, speaking carefully, “Growing up, my mom would fuck dudes in the next room. Sex was never this taboo thing. People did it and whatever. So, like, when I started hooking up and stuff, it was never this big deal to me. Like, I was a little hesitant at first, but other than that...I just never had this big emotional connection to it. Until I met you.” Justin’s eyes lifted to meet hers, a small, hesitant grin forming on his face. She returned it, rubbing his hand reassuringly. “When I was on the street though, it was different. The sex was,” he paused, searching for the right word, “rougher. Sometimes a guy would take you to a motel or something if he was fancy, but most of the time it was against the wall in a dirty alley.” Justin’s voice caught, his eyes wet. Corresponding tears ran down Jessica’s cheeks. “It was brutal. They would fuck you and then leave you there. And I was lucky. I know people who got beat up or worse. Some were just straight up killed.” Jessica’s breathing stuttered. The thought of Justin becoming another dead prostitute that the police didn’t care about made her feel sick. “I couldn’t stop though. I needed the money. So I just didn’t think about it.” 

“That’s not healthy, Justin,” Jessica cut in. 

“I know but what else could I do? I needed money.”  _ For drugs,  _ Jessica’s mind finished. Instantly, guilt shot through her. “It’s not like I was having sex for fun. I had no other choice. It’s not like people are handing out twenties to homeless people on the street.” 

She squeezed Justin’s hands and make sure he was looking in her eyes. “I’m so fucking sorry that happened to you Justin.” 

As much as she wanted to, Jessica couldn’t stop the flow of tears streaming down her face. On some level, she had been lucky, as fucked up as that was to say. Jessica’s trauma was singular; one moment that haunts her when she closes her eyes at night, one place to avoid, one boogeyman. For Justin, it happened over and over again. One person to rape you over and over again is unthinkable. Multiple rapists and multiple rapes? That’s beyond Jessica’s comprehension. 

Even worse, if she had responded to that fucking postcard, he would have come back to Evergreen. She knew that, she  _ knew  _ that all it would take was one word and he’d come running home. But she was pissed and she was being selfish. Jessica wasn’t stupid. She had known that Justin’s homelife wasn’t good, she had known that Justin didn’t get as many bruises from sports as he claimed. Something was going on, she knew every time he texted her asking to stay the night. So when Justin ran away, Jessica knew that he wasn’t staying with family in Oakland or some other bullshit justification. He was on the street, having sex for money just to survive. And Jessica, who knew something was wrong, left him there. The shame curdled in her stomach. 

“I’m so  _ fucking  _ sorry Justin,” she apologized again, “I should’ve gone looking for you. I should’ve been there.” 

Justin cupped her face in her hands. “Hey, hey, no. You were angry and still healing. You had every right not to want to see me.” 

“But I knew! I knew that things probably weren’t good for you and I still did nothing.” 

“Jessica,” he paused to make sure she was listening, “it’s not your fault.” 

Two more fat tears rolled down her face. “Ugh.” She wiped the tears away with her hands and sniffled. “I’m sorry, I should be the one comforting you.” 

“It’s okay. Really. We got each other.” 

They smiled. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Please kudos or leave a comment. Seriously, any comment will make me cry. 
> 
> Come yell about Justin with me on tumblr at @caven---malore !


End file.
